Residents' intention to take collective action through participation in not-in-my-backyard protests in China

Abstract

Using the theory of planned behavior, we investigated the factors motivating residents' intention to take collective action by participating in not-in-my-backyard protests. We conducted a survey with 286 Chinese residents living near a waste-to-energy incineration plant. Results of structural equation modeling show that the personal factors of attitude, subjective norm, and self-efficacy positively affected intention to protest. Perceived group size (in-group factor) indirectly and directly affected intention, and social trust (out-group factor) indirectly affected intention through perceived environmental health risk. The effect of situation factors on intention was positive for perceived environmental health risk and negative for perceived action risk. Collective efficacy and perceived economic risk had no significant effect on intention. It is, therefore, important to promote social trust to decrease risk perception and to prevent protest when locating not-inmy-backyard facilities.

The Mobilizing Power of Influencers for Pro-Environmental Behavior Intentions and Political Participation

“…Drawing from the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985), which postulates that behavioral intentions need to be formed before individuals perform a behavior, it can be expected that environmental behavior intentions function as a predictor for subsequent behavior. Indeed, many researchers who have used the Theory of Planned Behavior as a foundation found that pro-environmental intentions predict subsequent environmental behavior (Chen, 2016;Dienes, 2015;Masud et al, 2016;van Riper et al, 2013;Xue et al, 2021), although some have found an intention-behavior gap for habitual behavior (e.g., Lin, 2013). Since pro-environmental intentions can be understood as a cause-related political topic, it is comprehensible that these intentions do not only predict traditional environmental behavior such as recycling, but-in response to influencers' online communication-also translate into action in the online realm stimulating more online political participation.…”

Research on the Paths and Effectiveness of Governance Tools Based on the Evolution of Environmental NIMBY Event

“…Wei studied the emotional changes of the proximate residents caused by the new chemical plant using the structural equation model (SEM); the results show that the sense of unfairness and dissatisfaction with the government will increase the probability of environmental NIMBY events [ 17 ]. In addition, direct or indirect factors such as people’s risk perception [ 18 , 19 ], differential government trust [ 2 ], psychological acceptance [ 20 ], and the “emotional state” of proximate residents [ 21 ] will increase the probability of public resistance. The difference between the significant positive externalities of the NIMBY facilities to the grass-roots government and the negative externalities relative to the residents near the NIMBY facilities leads to the imbalance of benefit distribution [ 22 ].…”